


from our roots, in earth interred

by whiplash



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:16:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny puts together a prayer kit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from our roots, in earth interred

John puts together a prayer kit.

He already has the book, wrapped in a square of orange fabric that smells faintly of blood and polluted air. The prayer beads he buys at a market on Leith. They’re made of polished wood rather than clay, running more smoothly under his fingers than he imagines that Alvis’ must have. Acting on impulse, he then steals a scalpel and a handful of antiseptic wipes from one of the medkits.

In his defense, he’s just survived a massacre. People do strange things in the aftermath of tragedy. Frankly, purchasing a string of wooden beads and committing petty theft probably doesn’t even make the top ten list of post-disaster weirdness.

Three months after the bombs fell he sits down on his bed, cross-legged and with his hair still damp from the shower. He lays the items out in front of him. The book. The beads. The scalpel. Other than the humming of Lucy’s engines, the room seems very quiet. He runs his fingers across the orange fabric. It’s coarsely woven and rough against his fingertips. He remembers how scratchy the scarback’s robes had been. Remembers cold sweat pouring down his back as he’d offered that poor woman a blessing. And how D’avin had looked at him, his mouth unhappy and his forehead wrinkled with confusion.

John scrambles off the bed and stashes the kit under his bunk. Then he kinda, mostly, forgets about it.

Only sometimes… sometimes his thoughts wander. Late at night when he’s meant to be asleep in his bunk, or while he’s piloting Lucy through the darkness of space. He doesn’t think about his home crumbling to the ground or the broken bodies of his friends and neighbors underneath a blanket of crushed rock and warped metal. He doesn’t think about Pawter or the other survivors, trapped underground like rats in a sewer. Doesn’t think about his brother, caught somewhere between missing and lost.

No, John thinks about acid rain, his skin remembering the tiny drops of fire which had fueled his determination like nothing else. He thinks about Alvis knowing look. He thinks about bestowing that damned blessing.

And he thinks of the scarbacks chanting, their bodies swaying like orange reeds in the wind.

_Be silent, have trust._

_Do not ask for words,_  
_do not ask for thoughts,_  
_but ask for a share in the agony_  
_from our root in earth interred_

**Author's Note:**

> The poem "Be silent, have trust" is by the Swedish poet Karin Boye.


End file.
